Karen Hills said that her side have set an ‘unbelievable milestone’ by going 26 unbeaten after victory at The Valley against Durham in WSL2 on Sunday.
The game finished 4-2 to the Addicks on a wet day that saw the best of Charlton women in front of goal and the best of Sophie Whitehouse, in particular, in the net.
Hills was pleased to get the win as this tie was always going to be a tricky one.
“I was really pleased with our performance today against a very good Durham side,” said Hills.
“We knew what they were going to be about, they have a lot of character, they’ve got a lot of fight, a lot of determination and we matched it. And, for me, today was all about getting the three points and finding a way to win. I thought we did that really, really well.”
The Addicks went in 3-1 at half-time and a couple of substitutes for Durham saw them start the second half with more momentum.
“Obviously 3-1 at half-time, we knew we still had another gear in us, we needed to try and kick on. We knew that they were going to throw everything at us, and I thought we done that really well in the second half. Overall, it’s a great start to the week and three points at home which is exactly what we were looking for.”
Durham eventually managed to bring the scores back to 3-2 in the 85th minute of the game, and that could have caused nerves to get the better of them. However, the team showed great resilience to then score a fourth only three minutes later, restoring the two-goal lead. Hills said her team works on managing those moments when you could falter after conceding.
“We speak about the momentum shift when you score, or you concede a goal and it’s that block of time straight after. You either go with it, or it hits you again and I thought today - we talk a lot about it from a psych point of view how to bounce back and reset and we reset really, really quickly and were able to go and get the next goal, especially when they scored. Overall, it could have gone 3-2 and it could have caused us a few more problems.”
Hills emphasised the importance of Sophie Whitehouse in goal for Charlton, too, with a some of great saves in the game, especially one from a free-kick that kept Charlton ahead.
Hills said: “I thought Sophie pulled off an unbelievable save in the set piece and if that would’ve gone in it might have looked a little bit different.
"But Sophie does what Sophie does and week after week she pulls off some unbelievable saves.”
This match was the first of three in seven games for the women’s team, as they travel to Ipswich on Wednesday in WSL2, before another away tie at Oxford on Sunday. It was the best start to this triple header for Hills’ side and she said that the important things to do now are recover and prepare.
“The main thing is now that we’ve got to recover. We will obviously go back to the training ground and review the game, look at some of the areas I think we could have done better in today.
“We could always keep improving. I thought our out of possession shape was, at times, not as good as we have been, and I think that comes down to maybe concentration or lack of a little bit of discipline. So we’ll address that, look at that and make sure that’s always at the forefront of everything that we do.
“But then, at the same time, I want us to be positive, I want us to go ‘that’s 26 game unbeaten’, which is an unbelievable milestone for any team and what I want us to do is go with that hunger and that winning mentality, go to Ipswich on Wednesday and put in another performance.”
Despite looking ahead, Hills wants the team to revel in what they have achieved.
“I thought today we were outstanding, and we’ll enjoy that moment.”
Charlton women will travel to Ipswich on Wednesday which can be watched on the WSL2 YouTube channel.
You can catch the team back at The Valley in when they play Sunderland on Sunday, March 15th (KO 12pm GMT).
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